Australian Landscape

Bill O’Shea, The Long Padock

About

William O’Shea was born in Sydney in 1934, and is generally regarded as one of Australia’s best selling painters.  His works are distinctly ‘O’Shea’ in style, which dramatically, and beautifully typify the Australian scene – the woolsheds, mining and farming scenes, shacks, timber mills, homesteads, and pubs of Australia.Bill O’Shea is typically Australian (4th generation) and is contrary to the accepted ‘artist image’.  He began painting full time in 1974 after having worked in poster design, silk-screen printing, and as a part-time lecturer at the Sydney School of Graphic Arts.  He moved closer to the area of his favourite subjects where he established the Bakers Swamp Gallery near Wellington, NSW in 1981, where he has his studio. Today, much of Bill’s work is commissioned by eager collectors, or for reproduction on calendars, cards and souvenirs.

Thoughts

Unlike the other artist I have selected Bill's artwork fairly recent created in the mid 90s, his work is very traditional drawing from the early documentation painters that were created when colonists first arrived in Australia. color is one of the key aspects of the image and draws the viewer in with is blue sky contrasting with the dehydrated orange trues, blues reflecting of them from the sky, the background is that of a barren road leading to more isolation. both the foreground and the background create a feeling of isolation making the focus the barren untraveled landscape, while their are two figures in amougst the foliage they are both dwarfed by the surrounding environment, which alienates them to nothing but background objects.

Margaret Preston, Berowa, 1941

About

One of Australia’s most significant artists, Margaret Preston was a key figure in the development of modern art in Sydney from the 1920s to the 1950s ("Margaret Preston :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW", 2019). Renowned for her paintings and woodcuts of local landscapes and native flora, she was an outspoken public voice on Australian culture and championed a distinctly Australian style, based on the principles and motifs of modernist, Aboriginal and Asian art.

From 1926 ("Margaret Preston :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW", 2019) Preston exhibited with the Contemporary Group and her work was featured in Sydney Ure Smith’s landmark journal Art in Australia, to which she contributed articles on a variety of subjects, including the role and nature of Australian art.

Preston travelled widely throughout the Pacific, Asia, India and Africa, where she cultivated an interest in non-European art and culture. Incorporating diverse styles and motifs into her work, she sought to create a visual language that engaged with Australia’s place in the Asia Pacific region and placed Aboriginal art in a foundational position – as evident in such innovative works as I lived at Berowra 1941. ("Margaret Preston :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW", 2019)

Thoughts

One of the things I liked about this artwork is the similarities it has with New Zealand regionalism, particularly painter Rita Angus. The landscape is treated like that of a block print, with each color and tone blocked into their own sections attempting to create definition to the piece however due to this their is a sense of flatness (which isn't a negative). Depth has also been taken into account with the artist layering trees and bushes over each other to create a sense of space to the scene. Like the regionalism painters of New Zealand the main focus of these landscapes also appears to be an isolated environment with very little civilization, apart from 5 houses in the background which is dwarfed by the nature within the foreground.

Refrences

Bill O’Shea Australian Landscapes Oils & Acrylic paintings. (2019). Retrieved 5 August 2019, from https://www.ausiart.com.au/our-artists/bill-oshea/

Margaret Preston :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW. (2019). Retrieved 4 August 2019, from https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/preston-margaret/